


the recovery position, and the implications thereof

by frostbittenradicals



Category: 20th Century CE RPF, Cambridge Five RPF, Historical RPF, Political RPF - UK 20th-21st c.
Genre: (as in this actually happened and i'm only putting words to it), Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Caretaking, Gen, Goodbyes, Historical Accuracy, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Inspired by Real Events, Internal Conflict, Introspection, Manipulative Relationship, Post-Betrayal, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-23
Updated: 2018-09-23
Packaged: 2019-07-15 11:21:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16062059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frostbittenradicals/pseuds/frostbittenradicals
Summary: Kim looks ridiculouslyhumanfor a traitor of such epic proportions, lying unconscious in bed, shoes on, Saville Row suit crumpled.Elliott takes Philby up on his request that he join him for dinner the evening after he gives his confession on tape. He's passed out drunk when Nick arrives.





	the recovery position, and the implications thereof

Nicholas Elliott shows up at the door of Philby's Beirut flat with a bottle of wine and no tape recorder. He'll remember the whole conversation well enough, and he's obtained all the damning evidence he needs on recording anyway. If he's to be honest with himself, which he will not be, he's here because he expects  _something - some_ kind of closure. Not an account of  _what_ Kim did - they've already established that, God knows - but  _why_ he did it.

He knocks on the door just like he has every other time they've met for dinner since he moved into this sweltering cradle of political discontent however many months ago, as if nothing's out of the ordinary. He imagines they'll eat dinner like nothing's out of the ordinary, too, save for the topic of conversation. The door swings open and Eleanor answers it, the flared skirt of her polka-dotted cocktail dress halfway blocking the doorway.

“Kim’s indisposed,” she informs him in a hushed tone, resting her forearm on the doorframe. Nick doesn’t know why he’s surprised. Kim Philby, running again, always running. He supposes he’ll have to wait until morning for closure, provided he does them the favor of remaining in Beirut that long.

Nick nods and steps forward anyway, enough to indicate that he'd still like to come in, and Eleanor wordlessly leads him through the foyer and stops in the archway leading to the living room. She doesn't _need_ to say anything; the not-unfamiliar scene explains itself well enough. There lies Kim, asleep on the ugly tan carpet--unconscious, really, is a better word for it, in light of the empty bottle of Johnny Walker on its side next to him. A few solitary drops cling to the glass like beads of pine resin, like amber. 

 _It’s not guilt,_ Elliott tells himself. _A man like that cannot feel guilt._ It’s stress. Stress at being found out, stress at facing his actions. _God_ damn _you, Kim._

He’s still breathing, albeit slowly. All of the subtle tension to his face when they met earlier in the day has evaporated, giving way to peaceful, corpselike blankness, save for the occasional twitch of the brows that comes with deep sleep. He can see where Eleanor’s loosened his tie and unbuttoned the first two buttons of his dress shirt. She's also placed a couch pillow under his head; he’s obviously much too heavy for her alone to move off of the floor.

Nick presses his lips together, passing a few moments in silence before speaking up. “We should get him to bed, then.” It’s not the first time the two of them have gone through this routine. The new context to Kim's increasingly frequent drinking binges casts a sickly shadow on an already grim decline. He doesn't know whether or not it's better or worse that he was probably drinking to escape from the reality of what he was doing - at least it wasn't _easy_ for him. Nick tries not to let the tangle of fury and heartbreak rise to the surface of his mind now. He has a task to do, and like any reasonable Englishman, he will do that which is needed of him without letting his own hurt feelings get in the way.

He and Eleanor line themselves up at his head and feet like pallbearers preparing to carry a casket. Nick’s knees crack as he crouches down and slips both arms underneath Kim’s, the weight and warmth of his alleged friend’s body making his skin crawl and blood curdle as if an invisible disease is creeping through Philby and into himself. His jaw tenses.

“Alright – you have his feet?”

“Yes.”

“One, two, three—” Kim’s head lolls to the side and Elliott's glasses slide halfway down his nose when they lift him. He’s heavy and Nick's hardly an athlete, but at least it’s not very far to his and Eleanor’s shared bedroom. The flat is about the same size as the tiny house he and Aileen and the children had been exiled to after he was forced to resign his post - the bills for which Elliott had gladly paid, believing at the time that Kim would have done the same for him in a heartbeat. Ha.

Eleanor’s a little out of breath when they get him onto the bed. Nick is too, but not to the same degree. She casts him a small, grateful smile with a trace of sadness behind it.

“Thank you, Nick.”

“Of course,” he mumbles, more preoccupied with the sight before him. Kim looks ridiculously _human_ for a traitor of such epic proportions, lying unconscious in bed, shoes on, Saville Row suit crumpled. Eleanor awkwardly steps forward and starts undoing the laces of his shoes, then slides them off. Left, then right. She arranges them neatly at the edge of the bed. The absurd banality of it all makes Elliott feel vaguely sick.

This poor woman presumably has no idea that her husband will more than likely be gone tomorrow morning, darting out of Beirut like a cat through an open door. Telling her isn't worth the suffering it would cause, seeing as she can't change it - _none of them_ can change it; no matter what Kim's Soviet masters may think, he doubts  _anyone_ can change the itinerary of Kim Philby save for Kim Philby himself - so Nick just stands there like a fool, burdened with the knowledge, silent. This is almost certainly the last time  _he_ will see Kim, too, and there's a new, heart-wrenching anger and indignity and _pain_ at that - he doesn't know what exactly he'd expected from dinner with a man who had spent twenty years systematically betraying him, but regardless of what it was, it would have been some semblance of a goodbye. _Some_ kind of thanks before Philby's inevitable, tacit acceptance of a greater gift than any sensible man in Nick's position would offer.

He'll be gone in the morning, then, and this is the last time they'll ever be in the same room, provided he's any good at escaping. Elliott can't help but think the entire situation's a cruelly fitting bookend to the past two decades or so - Kim reduced to what he really is, a pathetic drunk with no  _real_ regard for the emotions of the people around them, no thought of the mental state of anyone but himself. Of  _course_ he wouldn't keep his word. Of  _course_ he wouldn't. If anyone, he himself is the fool here.  _I hope you choke on your own goddamn vomit, Kim,_ Nick thinks, only for a flash of guilt to stir in the pit of his belly a second later, as if this man is worthy of anything but his hatred.

Because he will - should his body comes to its senses and belatedly decide to eject what it still can of an  _entire fucking bottle_ of whiskey, he's not going to be conscious to turn over. Won't even make it to the docks. Or out of bed. He imagines the end of the slow rise-and-fall to the chest of the man sprawled on the bed in his street clothes, the gradual cyanosis of his fingernails, and the pre-emptive grief pierces his chest like a gunshot. 

“Turn him onto his side,” Nick says after a moment of conflicted pause, and hates himself for it. “He could choke if you don’t.”


End file.
